


Why Does It Hurt So Much?

by Nihonkikuasa211



Category: Code Black (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Pre-Series, Tag to 1x14
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-01
Updated: 2016-04-01
Packaged: 2018-05-30 10:57:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6421045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nihonkikuasa211/pseuds/Nihonkikuasa211
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leanne didn't expect Jesse to follow her after she exited a scene that meant so much to her heart, and wishing that it was hers. Jesse comforts his friend, and tells her the answer the question she whispered to him. "Why does it hurt so much?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Why Does It Hurt So Much?

_Why Does It Hurt So Much?_

 

            She didn’t expect for him to follow her. Dr. Leanne Rorish’s dark brown hair partially concealed her face, for which she was grateful for. The residency director would not able to look at anyone if someone could see her face. She was in pain. Deep, mind-numbing pain that took away all feeling that the ER doctor of twenty-five years felt.

            Leanne _was_ pain. Her throat closed, and the dark-haired doctor swallowed an animalistic urge to run away. To run away from everything, anything that reminded her of what she had lost. She could feel the old eyes of her friend staring at her, gently, knowing her well enough to stay motionless – for now. Leanne swallowed thickly and tried desperately to not cry.

            She had thought that her tears had dried since that horrific day that never left her, the living nightmare that still refused to release its shadow over her. It tore Leanne through every of her two hundred six bones in her body that she had not been able to save her family that night. She had saved countless families, mothers and fathers and children.

            Why could she not have had the skill to save the ones more dear to her than her heart? The smiling faces of the children as they embraced their parents, and of the tears running down the father’s face as he embraced the children that had miraculously survived the car accident, boring into Leanne’s soul as she stared at the scene that almost caused her heart to stop.

            Many times, even now, Leanne wished that she hadn’t survived. She should have died. Even though her body survived with its main functions still intact, the heart that had once beat furiously at the thought of her husband, or pure joy at the thought of her children, and the calm tranquility when she thought of her home at Angles and of the people in it…had died. Leanne wished more times than she could count that one of her family members had survived – maybe then she would still feel something, anything more than this empty shell that she had become.

            _It hurts._ The memory of seeing her beloveds’ bodies lying on the ground in their own blood.

 _It hurts._ Her cold hands as she gripped the unopened letters from her family’s killer, her heart feeling alive again as she wished him the most pain possible.

 _It hurts._ Leanne’s hands were still by her sides even as she felt the achingly familiar sting in her eyes.

            The doctor gasped as she felt Jesse’s hands on her own, pushing away the hands that were about to wipe the tears away. The tears that fell were warm and thick, and Leanne swallowed the salty bitterness as she stared at the understanding of her friend – her dear, dear Jesse – before her.

            “Why does it hurt so much?” Leanne rasped, her voice a mere whisper as her agonized eyes stared into Jesse’s own. The senior nurse didn’t respond to his friend, instead observing the woman he had known for so long with so much understanding and sadness.

            “Because it is love, Daddy.” Leanne bit her lip at the sound of her nickname that the residents knew her as, and saw the small smile across Jesse’s face as the Puerto Rican solemnly remained silent. “Love heals all things, even though it doesn’t seem like it now, my friend.”

            “I miss them too.”

            Leanne tried to hold back the gasp from her mouth but wasn’t able to. Tears continued to streak down her cheeks, and Jesse continued to speak gently to his friend.

            “Crying cleans the soul, too. It’s good that you are crying, Leanne.”

            Leanne stared at Jesse, hard. The fury of everything that happened to her – losing not only her family but everything that she had loved, just because of one _damn_ decision by a drunk driver that should have died that night – almost overwhelmed her as she spoke coldly to the man holding her hands.

            “If it was me on that…slab of ice, you wouldn’t be saying that.”

            Jesse didn’t react. Actually, he did. His eyes narrowed and his grip on Leanne’s hands tightened.

            “Although I believe you would clean up to be a pretty-looking corpse, no one here would want that, Daddy.” There was a long pause. “You know that.”

            “Why am I here, Jesse?” Leanne whispered, never before feeling so tired. Her eyes blinked, and she wasn’t surprised to hear her voice shake. The scene of the happy reunion with the family had brought back too many memories, too many dreams too far beyond her reach. “I should be with them, not saving people that don’t need to be saved because I should have _saved them._ ”

            “Goddamn it,” Leanne hissed as she felt another agonizing wave of despair and grief. “Why do it hurt…so much, Jesse?”

            For a moment, the friend that she had spent twenty years of her life was motionless. His grip on her hands loosened. The large Puerto Rican male enveloped the grieving doctor in a hug, almost crushing her with the amount of strength and love that Leanne knew to be her friend.

            “Because when you feel pain, my friend, you are alive.” Jesse spoke into Leanne’s ear, almost pressing his shoulder against her forehead as the doctor let go of whatever inhibitions she had and clutched him…from the weakness and pure agony that was her heart. “And I know you do not see it now, but that is a very good thing.”

            “A very good thing,” Jesse continued to whisper. Soon he was silent as Leanne continued to hold together whatever sanity she had left. Trying not to sob in Jesse’s arms as he began to stroke her hair.

            “A very good thing, Leanne.”


End file.
